


two quarters and a heart down

by kairiolette



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 08:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2766980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kairiolette/pseuds/kairiolette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I was sexiled,” Sousuke says, staring distantly past Haru’s shoulder, something tragic and soulless in his voice as Haru’s eyebrows curve downward to mirror his puzzled frown. Sousuke sincerely hopes Haru is as disturbed as he had been. “I came back to my room, and there was a sock on the doorknob.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	two quarters and a heart down

It’s three in the afternoon on a Thursday and Sousuke, finally back for a nap after a full day of class and work and working out, is in mid-reach for his and Rin’s door. His action is interrupted, though, when he notices a sock—black, cotton, ankle-cut, suspiciously like the ones Rin wears—hanging off of the doorknob. He stares at the thing for a moment, his mind unable to piece together its meaning, like he’s reading English or Old Japanese.

When the language barrier does crumble, when the universal meaning of a socked doorknob becomes as clear to him as his sudden need to throttle his best friend, Sousuke goes through emotions as Rin normally does: annoyed, pissed, annoyed, pissed, annoyed—he doesn’t have quite as expansive an emotional range as Rin but it flickers just as fast, like channels on a television. Only mildly whiplashed and still rather bewildered, still staring at the sock as if it had put itself there, he considers opening the door anyway. He has his own key—it’s his room, too, and right now he needs a nap even more than before.

But again, he pauses in reaching for the doorknob; his desire to avoid witnessing even a second of whatever Rin and Makoto are up to outweighs his damage. He could squeeze his eyes shut and blunder in blindly, yelling at Tachibana to leave—yelling at Rin to leave too, probably. But he’s not too sure he has the energy for that, and he definitely doesn't have the patience to stick around any longer without roundhouse-kicking down their door. So he skedaddles, and he does so without running into any other fellow tenants, which is fortunate for them because he figures his face looks a lot like that deep-sea fish character ironed on to one of Haru’s too-many tee-shirts: _scary_.

Stepping outside from the lobby of his apartment complex, Sousuke tucks his hands in his pockets and realizes that he’s moving on autopilot, his grumpiness leading him wherever it wills. _Wherever it wills,_ he muses, derisive, because he knows exactly where he’s going. He checks his phone from within his pocket; a text from Rin from fifteen minutes ago that reads a simple ‘sorry,’ which he does not dignify with a response, not even with his favorite frowning devil emoji. He considers texting Haru instead, giving him a heads up, but he remembers that he would have better luck reaching him via homing pigeon.

Scuffing the bottom of his shoe along the sidewalk, he feels maybe a fraction less salty than he had been just seconds ago—maybe it’s the fresh air, or maybe it’s because he knows exactly where he is going to end up.

+

The walk to Haru’s apartment takes about a half an hour and it’s one that Sousuke has made multiple times before for very different reasons—seeking refuge from his roommate-that-must-not-be-named definitely not being one of them. Not until today, at least.

He knocks on the door of Haru’s apartment before he can think himself out of it, before he can think himself into walking away. _It’s just Haru,_ part of him argues, because it _is_ , and since when has he cared about what Haru thinks? _Since we started fucking_ , his unhelpful brain supplies, but his own thought leaves a funny taste in his mouth. He tucks his hand back into his pocket, looking down at the floor, waiting.

_Why am I here?_ he thinks, heaving a sigh, gazing dully into the closed door in front of him. Instead of blocking away the question, it crosses his mind repetitively, like a playground bully taunting him: _Why are you here why are you here why are you here?_ He strains his ears to hear over the roar of his traitorous thoughts: shuffling from behind the door, then muted footsteps. The door inches open.

“Sousuke?” Haru says, slowly, swinging the door open wider and stepping aside to let him in. He blinks, troubled, up at Sousuke as he begins to shuck off his jacket, toe off his shoes.

“Are you still in your pajamas?” Sousuke snipes, and Haru’s surprise morphs, seamless and just as Sousuke had hoped, into an irritated frown. He leads Sousuke into his living room with no questions—nothing but a glance over his shoulder, for which Sousuke is grateful.

The small living room, a familiar area to Sousuke, is as spotless as it always is, bar the clutter on the table. The clutter seems to consist of—Sousuke steps closer, moving to sit beside Haru on the floor—wood shavings. And tiny, carved, wooden birds. And Haru picks up the small woodcarving knife that had been lying against the surface, returning to what Sousuke had apparently interrupted.

“I didn’t know you, uh,” Sousuke pauses, watches as Haru begins shaving off chips of wood from the little figure with surprising expertise, “whittled.”

Haru gives him a look like, _well, now you do,_ then promptly returns to his creation:  that curiously familiar bird with a bulbous head and beady eyes. Sousuke almost finds it comforting; in a world of socks on doorknobs and disrespectful best friends, something that will always be constant is how fucking weird Nanase Haruka is. So he rests his chin on the table, fixing Haru with a gaze whose heaviness Haru has evidently grown immune to. Sousuke is too tired to know how he feels about that.

“What are you doing?” Sousuke tries again upon noticing the cardboard box beside Haru, filled with countless of the identical wooden figures. Haru doesn’t look up.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he says instead, pressing in with the tip of his knife to carve what starts to look like a beak. Sousuke, unimpressed and too exhausted to be baited by Haru’s impossible sense of humor, rests his cheek down against the cool table surface and sends a glare toward Haru.

“Why are you doing— _that_ , then?”

Haru holds the finished product in the palm of his hand, assesses it, and must deem it acceptable because he places it in the box with the rest of them.

“To help persuade more people to join the Iwatobi Swim Club,” he answers simply. Sousuke reaches into the box to look at one himself; its eyes bore blank and dull into his own and it seems to know something he doesn’t. He recognizes the character, now, as the Iwatobi High School mascot. He places it face down on the table, flicks it closer to Haru.

“These would keep me away.”

“Want me to make you one? For your bag?” Haru asks, once again carefully carving an outline of the mascot into the block of wood in his hands.

“Pass.”

He watches silently as Haru finishes off another keychain, the repetitive scratch of his knife against the wood lulling Sousuke into drowsiness. He sits up straight, passing his hand down over his face, before he embarrasses himself by drifting off to sleep at the table.

“You still waste time with your old team?” he asks, but Haru is not quite easily baited today, either. He doesn’t spare an upward glance; his eyebrows pinch together in concentration, cheeks flushed as he continues whittling.

“Rin told me that you went to three Samezuka practices last week,” he replies, and Sousuke thinks _great_ , another reason why he needs to kill Rin. He scowls.

“Are there even this many students at the high school?” he asks, peering into the box of at least a hundred Iwatobi figurines. Haru takes a moment to gaze, blankly, up at Sousuke. “Is this how you plan on making a living?”

Haru puts his knife down on the table and Sousuke hides his mouth against his folded arms.

“Is there a reason you’re here, Yamazaki?” he asks, bored gaze boring a hole through Sousuke’s weak attempts not to laugh.

_No, I’m here because I want to spend my Thursday afternoon with you,_ he thinks, but he doesn’t voice it, doesn’t think he’d be able to muster enough sarcasm. He laughs to himself—at himself—while Haru’s narrowed eyes regard him.

“I was sexiled,” Sousuke says, staring distantly over Haru’s shoulder, something tragic and soulless in his voice as Haru’s eyebrows curve downward to mirror his puzzled frown. Sousuke sincerely hopes Haru is as disturbed as he had been. “I came back to my room, and there was a sock on the doorknob.” 

Upon comprehending Haru wrinkles his nose in distaste, and Sousuke thinks an emphatic _thank you_ and _right?_ because he shouldn’t be the only one ruffled by this injustice dealt to him by a so-called ‘best friend.’ But then, Haru’s small mouth pinches close in thought, and he gets at what Sousuke hoped he wouldn’t, like he’s stabbing it with that little knife of his.

“So then you came here,” Haru says, slowly, thoughtfully.

“So then I,” Sousuke sighs, realizing how pathetic it must seem—of all the options, all the paths he could have taken after seeing that dreaded black sock on his doorknob, he finds himself sitting at a table in the living room of Haru’s place, however many inconvenient miles and minutes from his apartment, “came here.”

Haru eyes him, silent. Sousuke sighs again, resting his cheek against his arm, trying not to yawn.

“This is all thanks to your inconsiderate best friends,” he grumbles, pouting, somewhat defensive.

“I thought Rin was your best friend,” Haru says, and he actually sounds smug as he smiles down at the half-carved wooden block he’s working on.

“He’s yours when he does shit like this,” Sousuke says, voice muffled by his shirt. Haru makes a humming noise and continues shaving away at the wood, still smiling like he won something. Sousuke ignores him, this time; opts for rubbing at his eyes again and stifling another yawn.

It feels like an hour passes between them while Haru— _whittles_ , which Sousuke is thankfully too tired to wrap his head around. He stretches into at least his eightieth yawn and this time Haru notices, turning to him.

“Are you sleepy?” he asks, and Sousuke bristles, sitting up straight and suddenly flustered, because who even says “sleepy” anymore? Five year olds, and Nanase Haruka. His eyes are as wide as a five year old’s when he peers up at him, anyway, not that Sousuke really notices. He rubs idly at his shoulder.

“Didn’t sleep well last night,” he mumbles, looking pointedly at the table. “I was planning on going home and napping, but.”

But Rin and Makoto happened, so instead I came all the way to your place. _Fuck_ , he again realizes how silly that sounds, and Haru must know it, too, because he's smiling vaguely, haughtily. Why does he always look so smug whenever Sousuke opens his mouth, lately?

“You can take my bed, if you want,” he says, looking down at the table as well, poking at his carving. Sousuke pauses, glances over at him, and can’t seem to gauge Haru’s intentions. Haru holds his gaze.

“Have you forgotten where it is?” he asks, that subtly teasing edge to his voice, and, grumbling, Sousuke heaves himself to his feet. He hasn’t forgotten. He feels a little awkward, though; he has been in Haru’s bed before but only for one reason, and each time, he hadn’t been alone. 

He reaches the doorway to Haru’s room and smiles over his shoulder to see that Haru has been watching him leave.

“Always wondered what your porn stash looks like,” he says, lips stretching even more into a grin. He expects an unimpressed blank stare from Haru, or no answer at all; what he doesn’t expect is for Haru to fumble with his knife and his carving until they clatter on the table, for Haru to startle and look over at Sousuke—but that’s exactly what happens. _Interesting_ ; Sousuke raises an eyebrow at him. But Haru’s anxiety lasts only for a split second; he then returns to his normal state of blank stares and coolness and—whittling, apparently.

“Don’t wrinkle the pages,” he says, and Sousuke nearly chokes, nearly trips into his next step. How could Haru possibly turn that around and make Sousuke feel like it’s _his_ porn hiding under the bed? He rubs at his shoulder again, maintaining his chill if it’s the last thing he does. How is Haru—the whittler, apparently—the cool one here?

“I—really wasn’t planning on looking,” he grumbles, willing the warmth away from his face with a deep breath, turning away from Haru’s undoubtedly smiling face to further nudge open the bedroom door. He hears a noise that sounds a lot like muffled laughter; he looks back again, huffing, “You’re really not coming?”

But Haru is already on his feet, trailing behind Sousuke in his pajamas and his ridiculous character socks and Sousuke forgets, for a second, that he had been pissed at Rin and Makoto, and at Haru for making him feel things—things like humiliation, mostly.

Haru’s bedroom is as neat as ever; his familiar bed freshly made and, after all that has transpired, so inviting. Sousuke eagerly climbs in after Haru, who holds up the covers for him to slide under. He has only been in Haru’s bed for sex—or attempts at sex, when they first started out—so when he ducks in for a kiss and slips his hand beneath Haru’s shirt to cup his soft waist, he blames it all on muscle memory, or something. Haru freezes, so Sousuke does as well.

“What are you doing?” Haru says, and Sousuke pulls back. Haru bites the inside of his cheek, and Sousuke should look into careers in comedy because turns out he’s hilarious today.

“Uh,” he says, removing his hand from under Haru’s shirt, watching amusement dance in Haru’s surprisingly expressive eyes. “Sorry.”

“You said you were tired,” Haru says, letting his head fall against his pillow, curling his hands beneath the covers and drawing them up under his chin. “Let’s sleep.”

Sousuke feels like sinking into the mattress even more, perhaps to the point of becoming one with it and thus avoiding all humanly attachments and feelings. He’s a little too tired and emotionally repressed to think so existentially, though. He wonders—why hadn’t Haru assumed that he came to have sex? Well, that wasn’t the reason why he had dragged himself all the way to Haru’s apartment, but still—what else would Haru have thought? Did he think that Sousuke came here just to be able to nap in bed with him? That’s kind of a nice thought, almost nice enough to lull Sousuke into a safe slumber. He can't shut his eyes, though, not when Haru’s are shut so close to his face. As if Sousuke’s thoughts are loud enough for him to hear, Haru cracks open an eye, catching him staring. Sousuke makes no move to feign sleep.

“Why do you need a nap?” he asks, voice low, and Haru squeezes his eyes shut again, indignant, “Did you whittle too much?”

Sousuke watches as Haru’s lips curve downward in a frown.

“I worked out today,” he says, blindly jutting his elbow toward Sousuke and curling his hand in a fist. Sousuke thinks he must be trying to flex; he wraps his hand around the wimpy bicep and wrestles the arm back to Haru’s side.

“Not enough,” he says, chuckling when Haru wrenches his arm out from his grip. He opens his eyes again to see Sousuke still watching him; he sends him a cold glare that sounds a lot like _weren’t you the one dozing off at my table not five minutes ago?_

“I can’t sleep,” Sousuke replies, turning onto his back and away from Haru. “It’s because you’re a god-awful host.”

Haru brightens, unfazed, “I can tell you a bedtime story.”

“I don’t want to hear about cyborg Rin anymore,” he declares, and interrupts Haru when he sees him open his mouth to argue, “Or anything-moge.”

Haru makes a face like he can’t possibly understand why Sousuke would say any of that, but he leans in closer to him anyway.

“Reach under my bed and grab the magazine there,” he urges, his chest brushing against Sousuke’s arm. Sousuke glances up at him—he’s way close, peering past Sousuke and nudging into him as if he’s trying to look under the bed himself.

“I thought—you said, we weren’t…,” Sousuke fumbles, letting his hand fall down over the side of the bed to grope at the floor anyway, searching blindly for slick laminated pages of what can only be the porn that is too precious for Sousuke to wrinkle. He wonders, with a nervous thrill of eagerness, what kind of weird shit Haru is probably into. Haru purses his lips into a flat line, rests his head back down on the pillow, close to Sousuke’s.

“Just do it,” he sighs, so Sousuke does; his fingers finally grasp what feels like a magazine and he pulls it out from under the bed.

It’s not porn—Sousuke would not classify it as porn. The cover of the magazine is a landscape with a main focus on the centered waterfall, in shiny white stylistic font the headline reads _World-Famous Waterfalls Edition_. It’s a thick, monthly magazine. The price above the barcode reads a number that could buy Sousuke at least an entire dinner, and he wonders if he may have already fallen asleep and landed himself in some bizarro stress dream.

“Do you,” Sousuke pauses to swallow, looking at the waterfall on the cover as if it holds some hidden answer before passing it off to the impatient Haru. He licks his lips, “Do you actually get off to this?”

Haru takes the magazine in his hands, scooting closer to Sousuke and holding it above the both of them so they can see. His head rests on the corner of Sousuke’s pillow; Sousuke makes sure to stay still, not wanting to scare him off. Haru fingers at one of the corners of the cover, his face, serene and smiling softly, so close to Sousuke’s. What would happen if Sousuke scooped him up and held him closer? He most certainly does not want to find out.

“Looking at the different waterfalls, I can imagine them in front of me,” Haru says, voice low and restrained. He runs his hand over the glossy cover. “It makes me feel calm enough to fall asleep.”

_That wasn’t a no,_ Sousuke wants to say, but Haru is already turning the page. He holds it open so Sousuke can see, his arm resting on top of Sousuke’s own: it’s a two-page spread with little text, and a giant picture of what seems to be #25 of all the most enchanting waterfalls in the eastern hemisphere. He squints his eyes as they roam over the spread that Haru currently salivates over—he must be missing something.

“This one’s kind of boring,” he says, watching Haru’s profile carefully. Haru shifts his head to make sure Sousuke sees the entirety of his pout, then turns over on his side, away from Sousuke, bringing the magazine with him.

“Don’t even look at it, then,” he mutters, and Sousuke tries to be grumpy but his tired face does this annoying thing where it can’t stop smiling.  He curls up behind Haru, pressing in close so he can see the boring magazine and the boring waterfalls once more. Haru’s hair smells like chlorine and shampoo, and when he leans back it tickles Sousuke’s nose. He turns the page and Sousuke humors him, swallowing snide remarks, knees brushing up against the backs of Haru’s. He feels warm, and his breath quickly becomes sluggish and deep as Haru turns each page.

“You’re boring me into—,” he means to finish his sentence but words turn into a big yawn that he tries to muffle against the nape of Haru’s neck. He falls still, then, head too heavy for him to crane his neck and look at the magazine. Haru puts it down anyway, resting it against the mattress. He turns, rustling the pillow and startling Sousuke, the apple of his cheek brushing against the tip of Sousuke’s nose. Sousuke struggles to keep his eyes open, can barely understand Haru when he speaks.

“Are you asleep?” he whispers and turns around more, almost completely, and Sousuke has a playful retort at the ready, a sarcastic _well, what does it look like,_ but he doesn’t get to say it because Haru tilts his chin up and presses their lips together.

Sousuke’s arm falls around Haru’s waist and his lips move against Haru’s slowly, like there’s a weight attached to them. He lets Haru lead, lets Haru tip him back against the pillow and rest himself flush against Sousuke’s side. He’s not used to this, not with Haru—this kissing leading nowhere except for more kissing, which definitely isn’t a bad thing when Sousuke thinks about it. He can’t really think about anything, right now, not when Haru is licking into his mouth and pushing his fingers back through his hair, warm and heavy in his arms, not when his mind is seconds from shutting down. Sousuke breathes in through his nose and sighs as Haru kisses his cheek and along his jaw, and he doesn’t remember when he falls asleep but he does—he goes out easier than he would have in his own bed.

+

And he wakes up because a weight crushes his chest and a thigh slips between his legs. He rubs the sleep away with pins-and-needles numbing his fingers, blearily focusing on Haru’s face, which is resting on top of Haru’s arms, which are pillowed on top of Sousuke, pushing him flat against the mattress. He’s saying something, small mouth forming words, but Sousuke doesn’t hear him; he feels like he has woken up from a coma, from one of those naps that do nothing to refresh you and everything to make you feel like you’re hungover and have teleported to another planet. He’s hard, too, and trying to squirm inconspicuously away from where Haru has chosen to rest his leg.

“What?” he mumbles, voice hoarse and scratchy with sleep. He watches while Haru peers down at him; he needs to squint to see his blurry face.

“I said,” he starts, looking amused, which Sousuke notices once he blinks the haziness away from his vision, “Makoto texted me.”

_What do I care?_ Sousuke thinks, _Why am I here?_  And then he remembers how he totally fell asleep kissing Haru; a wave of shame passes through him. Sousuke feels like he’s on a walk of shame, only with less walking and more sexual frustration and more feelings, and he was never taught how to deal with any of this. On instinct he moves to grip his shoulder, but, go figure: there’s a boy on top of him, so his hand falls awkwardly on Haru’s shoulder instead. Haru doesn’t seem to mind, doesn’t shrug it away.

“Is he out of my room?” he asks, shifting under Haru, fruitlessly hoping he doesn’t notice the hard-on digging into the top of his thigh. He wonders how long Haru has been awake for.

“Yes,” Haru says, “He also told me that they weren’t having sex.”

_Neither were we,_ Sousuke thinks, then realizes exactly what Haru is speaking about. He lifts his head up, neck straining and chin pushing into his chest, to stare bewilderedly at Haru, who is as close to grinning as he has ever been. “What?”

“They had a stray cat in your room.”

Sousuke lets his head flop back onto the pillow, studies the ceiling. He probably could have guessed that.

“That’s worse,” Sousuke whispers, trying not to think about how he came to Haru’s house—fell asleep in his arms—for literally no reason.

“They didn’t want you to find out,” Haru says, giddy at Sousuke’s expense, like he had been in on Makoto and Rin’s scheming all along. He lets his chin drop down onto Sousuke’s chest, digging in until it kind of hurts, but Sousuke doesn’t want him to move.

“Are you supposed to be telling me this?” Sousuke asks, because he probably would have prefered not to have known at all, not have to deal with the embarrassment. Haru presses his mouth into his own arm.

“No,” he says, shifting against him. Sousuke huffs, wondering idly what time it must be. Wondering when he should take his leave, wondering what he should do about his boner. His thoughts fizzle into white noise when Haru sits up, finding leverage with his palms flat against Sousuke’s chest. His knees land on either side of Sousuke’s hips; he settles his weight down on where Sousuke strains against his sweatpants— _ah_ , so he had noticed. Through a hiss of a sigh, Sousuke’s hands find Haru’s hips, holding them in place. He looks up at a disheveled Haru, who smiles softly. Sousuke’s fingers flex against his skin.

“The cat might still be there,” Haru says, making no sense to Sousuke’s muddled mind.

“What?” Sousuke breathes, and he feels like that’s a question he always has to ask when he’s around Haru, whether he’s addressing Haru or himself or the world at large.

“In your room,” he shifts himself, drags his knees farther apart against the sheets, “Knowing Rin, the cat might still be there,” he drags his hands onto Sousuke’s stomach, sliding under his shirt, “all night, maybe.”

Sousuke tilts his hips up into the sweet pressure of Haru’s body, squeezing his fingers where they curl around Haru’s bare thighs.

“Are you trying to get me to stay over?” he breathes, more than willing, but in lieu of an answer Haru starts rolling his hips, inching his hands further up under Sousuke’s shirt and leaning down to press his lips to Sousuke’s neck and Sousuke thinks, _fuck_ , Haru doesn't even have to ask him once.

 


End file.
